They Draw and Cook is a blog dedicated to wonderful original illustrated recipes. Each recipe is contained entirely within a 1200x450 pixel picture! The recipes are generally simple, but the illustrations are so interesting and clever. Enjoy!
Foods of Whidbey Island.
Sometimes we have moments or events that are spontaneous and fun and we remember them for a very long time. This Tuesday was one of those days for me. I found myself going to Seattle with my husband and my grandson. We were going to go see my youngest son David.
David goes to college at the University of Washington and he promised to take us to do some sight seeing. We headed to the Hiram M. Chittendon Locks in Ballard. I had never been to the locks before and was really excited to be going there and Chet? Chet loves the water and really big fish. This was perfect for us!
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are a complex of locks that sit in the middle of Salmon Bay, part of Seattle's Lake Washington Ship Canal. They are known locally as the Ballard Locks after the neighborhood to their north. (Magnolia lies to the south.)
The locks and associated facilities serve three purposes: To maintain the water level of the fresh water Lake Washington and Lake Union at 20 to 22 feet above sea level. To prevent the mixing of sea water from Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes (saltwater intrusion). To move boats from the water level of the lakes to the water level of Puget Sound, and vice versa. The complex includes two locks, a small (30 x 150 ft, 8.5 x 45.7 meter) and a large (80 x 825, 24.4 x 251.5 meter). The complex also includes a (235-foot, 71.6 meter) spillway with six (32 x 12-foot (3.7 m), 9.8 x 3.7 meter) gates to assist in water-level control. A fish ladder is integrated into the locks for migration of anadromous fish, notably salmon.
The grounds feature a visitors center, as well as the Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Gardens.
Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the locks were formally opened on July 4, 1917, although the first ship passed on August 3, 1916. They were named after U.S. Army Major Hiram Martin Chittenden, the Seattle District Engineer for the Corps of Engineers from April 1906 to September 1908. They were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
We spent the afternoon walking around the botanical gardens and even spent some time watching people around the park.Later it was something to eat (grandma needed a very large cold coffee) and a trip to the Cal Anderson Park where Chet and grandma played in the water. It was a wonderful day and a terrific afternoon.
Trip to Seattle from Whidbey Island.
Continuing with a theme, here's Women Reading, a Tumblr dedicated to - you guessed it, women reading. Enjoy!
Reading about Whidbey Island.
Some time ago I posted some original Lolcats. This nice graphic shows the history of the lolcat phenomenon.
Via: Online Schools
Cool Cats on Whidbey Island.
This weeks webcomic is The Book of Biff, a single-panel comic updating daily, M-F. Professional and eminently surreal, the odd-eyebrowed Biff is a true philosopher. Enjoy!
Eyebrows are Wild on Whidbey Island.
Who doesn't love Angelina Jolie? Well ok not "love" perse but at least is not intrigued by her? Well I will admit there are some strange people out there but you gotta show some interest in a beautiful woman, who not only is an actress with umpteen hundred kids but also is a spokeperson for UNICEF?? Ok if you dont like her then what about those tats? Okay if you still adamently hate her then skip this post and this movie because it is all about Angelina!
Those of you that know me and many who do know that I love mysteries and adventures. I love action movies and especially ones with a semi good plot! That being said... This movie was Okay... It was action packed, and the first half of the movie was pretty good with a pretty good plot set up. I like twists and turns and this one had a few but about 1/2 way through the movie.. it became predictable and (I do hate to say this)kind of tedious. It lost its zing and consequently my interest! The final insult was the obvious opening for a sequel! YUCK! Why cant we have good movies that offer no sequels? What happened to original movies with original stories and if we want sequels we will ask for them but until then the story stands alone with no obvious intent to capitalize on it's gross income from the showbox?
This movie rated a drip from me.. not my favorite movie and although the first hour was entertaining I found the movie unfulfilling.
Salt on Whidbey Island.
Russell Clepper writes poetic lyrics in the folk/country vein of American music in a style reminiscent of John Prine or Townes Van Zandt. Russell's soulful singing is joined by Ro Purser, who specializes in bluegrass, rock and blues on dobro and lap steel guitar, and Sarah Primrose lending her beautiful singing voice, forging powerfully moving harmonies to underscore the emotions in the melody.
When we had Rockhoppers Coffeehouse going we were lucky enough to have some wonderful musicians play at our shop! We truly were blessed. One of those musicians was Russell. He plays here on the island when he is here but you can also catch him in Texas when he is there. What a great voice and personality!
Sarah lives here on the island and her accompanyment is terrific as you can tell by the video. And Ro... Well just listen to see how vital his accompanyment is to the music! You cant have a much better afternoon than one listening to this trio or duo (as the song may be).
It is such a joy to have live music in this wonderful outdoor space. The music will continue every Saturday and Sunday morning from 11:00AM to 2:00PM. Come have some coffee and snacks and enjoy a morning outdoors listening to local musicians at the Useless Bay Coffeehouse in Langley WA.
Russell Clepper on Whidbey Island.
You may have found these on Yahoo but if you didn't stop to check them out then I hope you will now. They are brought to us by DameNation. This blog explored these wonderful creations for a Duct Tape contest where the contestants created entire outfits from duct tape. Anyone interested in trying this on the island?
Duct tape design not on Whidbey Island.
Well, since we decided to really start promoting our blog again and I again have my "eye on the prize" (so to speak) we have gotten significantly busier on the island. This weekend found us hosting a softball tournament at Dan Porter Park.
So let me explain how this event began....Mikkel and I are working at the church on our outreach project for St. Peters. We get hungry and decide to go to have lunch so...trallaldedooo... we go to Speedboat Cafe. It's hot and we are just talking and lo and behold we come to talking about having a water fight. Well we decide it would be really fun to have a spontenious water fight at the church but then we realize there just are not enough kids around the church for it to turn into any big thing..so we move the water fight to Dan Porter park..but there still are not enough kids or adults at any given time so we should advertise... We COULD GET THE FIRE DEPARTMENT TO EMPTY THIER TRUCKS FOR WATER!! Wow!! and with advertising I bet it could be a really big event...wait! Would the park let us do this..UMMM NO! and what about LIABILITY? Ok so that wont work but we could stay with the old time theme and do old fashioned rootbeer floats and softball games! Make a tournament and we could name it after Jim Harwell...YEAH.. All in agreement? It's a go! Rene will start advertising and well we will go from there.
So Rene prints posters, and sends them out to all the businesses she can get to along with talking to all managers, owners ect. and explaining that this is an event for the whole community and we want to get the shops to get customers to sign up for the games so we can have several games and it can become a tournament.
Then...Mikkel went on vacation...Jeff got busy with July 4th events at his shop and then running his cafe and ...Rene was here, busy with life and the softball tourney. Needless to say the event went off ok but it did have it's glitches. All in all though it was decided that next year we would do this again and this time some of the players even volunteered to help organize this wonderful event.
As for the event itself.. We had two teams. One of the teams was officially organized and represented Island Drug. The other was called the Stragglers and it was comprized of members of the community that just wanted to play and have fun. The umpire was me when I wasnt talking to people, and Mikkel when I was. The catcher for both teams was Mikkel and Jason Kalk from Lincoln Computers was the pitcher. The competition was great and as you can see everyone got into the fun! So next year plan on joining in if you can. We promise you will hear more about this event come next summer and something may develop in the next couple of months with some of the same characters... Can anyone say kickball?
Softball on Whidbey Island.
'She Runs', by Tim Halperin. The video for this is pretty amazing -- all done in one take.
Here's a little video showing how they made the one above in one take. Pretty ingenious.
Run on Whidbey Island.
